Sunday, April 06, 2008

For A Green-Class Laundry

Drying laundry outside is easy and possible, because there are plenty of clever drying racks and clothespins to make hanging laundry a little more interesting. You can get pretty creative;)

The Beauty of laundry

Remember the summer is comming soon, the most convenient time to dry laundry outdoors, though we can make air dry during spring's rainy days by setting up a clothesline in the basement, or even in the balcony like I do:)

Drying our clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds, did you know?

Basic way to save energy while doing laundry is to washin cold water.

Washing our clothes in cold or warm water instead of hot saves almost 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year they send into the atmosphere, read more at climate crisis.

Water for laundry; heating water to 'hot' accounts for 90 percent of the machine's washing energy, only 10 percent goes to power the motor. Switching to 'cold' can save the average household more than $400 annually with an electric water heater and $300 annually with a gas heater.

Cold-water laundering is perfectly healthful in most situations at home, with a couple of caveats. For example, if it is a problem of pollen or mold spores, cold water and detergent can rinse those out of the laundry. Needs no heat on the situation. If it is a problem of animal dander or dust mites, needed some heat; putting laundry in a hot dryer 120 to 130 degrees will kill those allergens. No need to precede that with a hot water wash. If it is a problem of dealing with like E.coli or norovirus or food poisoning that is resulted in a high level of bacteria or virus in the environment, what we need is only bleach. The hot water setting on washing machines is not hot enough to kill these. Adding bleach with a cool or warm water setting and then following with a drying process would be the appropriate solution.

3 comments:

no, actually it's an everyday issue. here in malaysia, it is common we do outdoor dry laundry ... in fact it is not common not to do so. exceptional goes to those who live in the aprtments as some aprtments require the inhabitants to only do indoor drying.

the problem with outdoor dry laundry here is that, you have to be aware of the rain. a particular tropical climate problemo as the sun shines brightly which gives way for the rain ... it is common for me to say ...

Another good suggestion is to put in an On Demand hot water heater. They don't just sit there using energy to heat the water all day when you aren't using it. They are initially pricy but frugal in the long run.